Gnostic Snakes Pins and Buttons
Description: Gnostic symbol of two intertwined snakes in a distressed cool look. Gnostic beliefs differed in various ways, but central to them all was a dualistic theology that opposed a purely spiritual Supreme Being, who was both the origin of the cosmic process and the highest good, to a chaotic and evil material world. To the Ophites, man’s dilemma results from his being a mixture of these conflicting spiritual and material elements. Only gnosis, the esoteric knowledge of good and evil, can redeem man from the bonds of matter and make him aware of the unknown God who is the true source of all being.
Description: Gnostic symbol of two intertwined snakes in a distressed cool look. Gnostic beliefs differed in various ways, but central to them all was a dualistic theology that opposed a purely spiritual Supreme Being, who was both the origin of the cosmic process and the highest good, to a chaotic and evil material world. To the Ophites, man’s dilemma results from his being a mixture of these conflicting spiritual and material elements. Only gnosis, the esoteric knowledge of good and evil, can redeem man from the bonds of matter and make him aware of the unknown God who is the true source of all being.
Description: The Gnostic deity Abraxas is used as a symbol throughout the text, idealizing the interdependence of all that is good and evil in the world. The symbol of Abraxas appears as a bird breaking free from an egg or a globe. In Hermann Hesse novel Demian, he argues that Jehovah, the Jewish God, is only one face of God; it rules over all that is wholesome, but there is another half of the world, and an infinite god must encompass both sides of this world.
